Posted By DJ Bean On November 23, 2012 @ 7:10 pm In General | 1 Comment

Entering Friday night’s game, the Celtics[1] have allowed 100 or more points in five of their 12 games, with the 6-6 C’s having lost all five games in which they’ve allowed such an offensive night to their opponent. By comparison, the C’s only allowed their opponents to score 100 points twice in their first 31 games of last season (0-2).

After Wednesday’s 112-100 loss to the Spurs, Rajon Rondo[2] lamented the Celtics’ defensive woes, saying that the team needed to do a better job of focusing on assignments during their morning shootarounds. Though the C’s had a light shootaround on Friday, most of the time they spent was looking at video of their in-game defensive woes.

“We’ve got to get our stuff right first. Rondo, in [saying] that, is half-right, but it also starts with each individual doing their jobs,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers[3]said Friday. “What we wanted to show them today was how many individual breakdowns each guy had. It’s funny when you look at it. It’s not a lot by one guy, but when you have three or four by each guy, that means you’re going to give up 58 percent shooting and give up 100-and-whatever points.”

Rivers pointed to the team’s struggles defending the pick-and-roll, and noted that all of the Spurs’ 3-pointers (they shot 8-of-16 on 3s as a team) came against their pick-and-roll defense.

“That’s us,” Rivers said. “A lot of it is pick-and-roll. When you look at San Antonio, I think every 3 they had came off a pick-and-roll. I think they had one in transition when [Gary] Neal pushed the ball up and pulled up and took a 3, but every single one of their 3s came off our pick-and-roll coverage. We have to be better.”